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on several projections at the White Cliffs. The projectors could be positioned within a couple of hours, with about another 90 minutes required for mapping. Nature proved less predictable. A thick bank of fog drifted across the cliffs while the team was preparing the projection. Besides reducing brightness and clarity, the fog temporarily obscured the surface that the team needed to see to complete the mapping. Fortunately, conditions eventually improved. Then another problem appeared. An electrical storm was moving towards the coast. With the Pixel Sharp team operating electrical equipment and large portable batteries in an exposed location, the approaching lightning changed the calculation quickly. The team captured the required imagery before shutting the system down earlier than originally planned. The situation reinforced an important principle behind Sharpe’s approach to outdoor production: environmental conditions cannot always be controlled, so preparation, experience and dependable technology become critical. “You make sure you’ve got cover, you make sure you’re protected, and you have backup plans,” he says. A message that travelled far beyond Dover The completed projection combined imagery inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry with the word ‘Merci’, creating a highly visible gesture of thanks to France ahead of the historic work’s return to England. Images of the projection subsequently travelled far beyond the cliffs themselves, including being shared by French president Emmanuel Macron. For Sharpe, the scale of the public response reflected the unusual place the Bayeux Tapestry continues to hold in the cultural imagination. “It’s something we learn about when we’re kids,” he says. “We all learn about 1066. It’s such an incredibly important piece of history.”
The project was also significant for Pixel Sharp, a young specialist studio built around a collective of experienced technical directors, project managers, creative producers and artists who have previously contributed to major projection and immersive projects across the industry. Rather than maintaining a large inventory of its own equipment, Pixel Sharp draws on a network of specialist talent and technology partners according to the requirements of each production. The White Cliffs project provided an opportunity for that expertise to appear under Pixel Sharp’s own name. Giving history a new context For Sharpe, projects like the Bayeux Tapestry projection also demonstrate something broader about the role of projection technology. Audiences are surrounded by digital imagery every day, much of it encountered through familiar rectangular screens. Projection can break that pattern by placing content directly into a physical environment and allowing the location itself to become part of the message. “The whole value is that you can take your message and give it context by placing it on a location, or by changing the shape of how it’s viewed,” Sharpe says. That ability is particularly powerful when technology is used to interpret culture and history. Rather than replacing the object or story at the centre of an experience, Sharpe believes the most successful technology can almost disappear behind it. “When you present something in a unique way, people are going to remember it,” he says. It’s hard to imagine a more fitting illustration of that principle: a story nearly a thousand years old, cast in new light on the White Cliffs of Dover and shining across the Channel as a vivid reminder that, however technology changes the way we tell our stories, the future remains illuminated by the past. n
Images: Pixel Sharp
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The whole value is that you can take your message and give it context by placing it on a location, or by changing the shape of how it’s viewed.
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